Apple University revealed as plan to teach executives to think like Steve Jobs

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
A secretive "Apple University" program that the company initiated in 2008 has been clarified to be a way to teach executives to emulate and perpetuate the successful strategies of Steve Jobs.



In October of 2008, AppleInsider reported that Apple had hired Joel Podolny, the dean of Yale University's School of Management. While rumored serve as the new dean of an "Apple University," it wasn't clear what that position would be expected to accomplish.



A letter from Yale president Richard Levin only noted that Podolny would be leaving to "lead educational initiatives at Apple."



A followup report in November 2008 cited a source who stated that the new Apple University was "intended broadly as an HR type function for developing leadership and other required skills and knowledge within the organization."



The program was compared to both internal MBA programs that are common among corporations, and specifically a "Pixar University" program that enabled any employes to avail themselves of training at Jobs' parallel company.



"Obviously Steve Jobs knows about this concept," a former Pixar intern told AppleInsider, "but I wonder if he finally decided to tie together and probably expand a lot of separate parts of employee enrichment at Apple much like they have at Pixar under the University banner with a dean; in Pixar's case, Dean Randy Nelson. Wouldn't be at all shocked if Apple mirrored Pixar's healthy and successful model."



Apple University head Joel Podolny.



A "closely guarded project"



A new report by the LA Times notes that Apple University involves "a team of experts hard at work on a closely guarded project."



Apple does not comment on the program, but the report cited "a former Apple executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his relationship with the company," as stating, "Steve was looking to his legacy. The idea was to take what is unique about Apple and create a forum that can impart that DNA to future generations of Apple employees.



"No other company has a university charged with probing so deeply into the roots of what makes the company so successful."



Citing people familiar with the project, the report says Jobs personally recruited Podolny and assigned him the task of helping Apple to "internalize the thoughts of its visionary founder to prepare for the day when he's not around anymore."



Avoiding a move HP Way-ward



Jobs' vision for Apple University appears grounded in a respect for the culture created by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, the founders of HP, who Jobs expressed admiration of on multiple occasions. That mindset, called the HP Way, involved "choosing the right things to do" and sharing a common set of elevated values.



Jobs worked for HP as a summer intern after writing Hewlett as a 12 year old eight grader to request parts to build a frequency counter. Hewlett provided the young Jobs with parts and helped him to assemble the device, then offered him a job.



Jobs' subsequent trajectory with Apple Computer brought him into regular, close contact with the HP founders; Jobs himself noted that he felt like he had failed to carry the torch handed him by the generation represented by HP's founders after being ousted by Apple in the mid 1980s.



But Jobs also observed the gradual erosion of the "HP Way" as the company he once admired was taken over by Carly Fiorina, then run into the ground during and after her departure by the HP board of directors, not just in performing poorly but also losing its vision and its values.



HP's failure as a company reached epic proportions this year when the company announced it would spin off its PC division and kill its brand new webOS hardware group to become something else entirely, before flopping back on those decisions by removing its less than a year old chief executive and replacing him with a board member.



Apple University intends to codify and preserve the culture Jobs established at Apple, training its executive team to adopt "tenets that he believes unleash innovation and sustain success at Apple ? accountability, attention to detail, perfectionism, simplicity, secrecy," the report notes.



"And he oversaw the creation of university-caliber courses that demonstrate how those principles translate into business strategies and operating practices."



Inventing an Apple Way



As AppleInsider reported three years ago, Jobs began modeling the Apple University concept upon Pixar University, "a professional development program that offers courses in fine arts and filmmaking as well as leadership and management to steep employees in the company's culture, history and values as well as its craft."



Jobs began searching for academics to lead the program five years ago, but accelerated his search in 2008 after his second medical leave. Podolny is described as "an accomplished scholar and administrator whose resume includes teaching at two of the nation's top business schools, Stanford and Harvard" and "is an economic sociologist who focuses on leadership and organizational behavior."



Prior to joining Apple, Podolny revamped Yale's School of Management, scrapping its individual courses in accounting and marketing to create multidisciplinary programs. He was expected to become a university president when he abruptly announced plans to leave to join Jobs at Apple.



"While there are many great companies," Podolny wrote students at his departure, "I cannot think of one that has had as tremendous personal meaning for me as Apple."



He recounted creating his first programs on the Apple II and producing his undergrad thesis on a LaserWriter at a glacial seven minutes per page.



Thus, while working to deliver his vision for mobile computing devices and pervasive cloud computing, Jobs also set in motion the means to preserve the very thinking and values that enabled Apple to produce its hit products over the past several years, and to continue to maintain that competency well into the future.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 52
    I would be hugely impressed if - and certainly do hope - this concept works.



    But I am skeptical.
  • Reply 2 of 52
    Steve Jobs was not always the nicest man, or the most humble, but he achieved great things, was an excellent presenter, slave driver, thinker and visionary. No doubt he wanted to pass that on. It's not easy to shape the way one thinks, especially at an older age. But if you are trained for 3 years to think at every step WWSD? (What would Steve do?) then I think you could certainly maintain a good level of "Apple DNA" after he passed away. I certainly hope so. I have nothing but great admiration for what Steve and Apple have done for personal technology.
  • Reply 3 of 52
    The dress code is blue jeans, and a black turtleneck.
  • Reply 4 of 52
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I would be hugely impressed if - and certainly do hope - this concept works.



    But I am skeptical.



    I'm skeptical too. Steve learned his ways from the school of hard knocks, and so did a lot of garage tinkerers. The trash coming out of MBA programs is laughable to say the least.



    I enjoyed watching Steve Job's 2005 Stanford speech about not attending college due to not knowing what he wanted to do and did not want to bankrupt his parents. He took a calligraphy class that honestly, the "Biff, Tad, & Muffy" MBA-types would have ridiculed him for and most likely label Job's a lazy-hippie.



    He did everything that no self-respecting school of higher education would ever recommend he do.



    You can't learn what Steve learned from going to school. School teaches you to get a job, maybe learn how to run a company, but not to actually take the risks, the falls, and the reap the rewards of creating a company such as Steve Jobs did.



    However, Steve Jobs did know to surround himself with an army of gifted people that knew how to do those things that frankly, Steve did not want to deal with. His ability to attract those people and those people in return believing in his vision and wanting to improve themselves thanks to Steve were key to all of Apple's successes.



    I really, really hope that AU has some secret sauce to tap that potential in people. I really, really hope it does. I want to believe that.
  • Reply 5 of 52
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    You can certainly teach showmanship. You can certainly teach people how to emulate the presentation style of others.



    But teaching people how to innovate? I'm not sure it's that easy.
  • Reply 6 of 52
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I would be hugely impressed if - and certainly do hope - this concept works.



    But I am skeptical.



    Yes, there is something about setting the "Jobs way" in stone that seems oxymoronic. Yet, surely he was aware of that pitfall and had planned to avoid it.
  • Reply 7 of 52
    markbyrnmarkbyrn Posts: 661member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by urbansprawl View Post


    But if you are trained for 3 years to think at every step WWSD? (What would Steve do?) then I think you could certainly maintain a good level of "Apple DNA" after he passed away. I certainly hope so.



    Hopefully that's not the case since that type of thinking will lead to rigid orthodoxy and eventual stagnation. You don't want to impede the next potential innovator/visionary by thumping a Steve Job's Bible.
  • Reply 8 of 52
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


    I'm skeptical too. Steve learned his ways from the school of hard knocks, and so did a lot of garage tinkerers. The trash coming out of MBA programs is laughable to say the least.

    ...

    You can't learn what Steve learned from going to school. School teaches you to get a job, maybe learn how to run a company, but not to actually take the risks, the falls, and the reap the rewards of creating a company such as Steve Jobs did.



    Every company should have some form of mentorship. Some companies have formal systems, some less formal. That alone isn't that innovative.



    Teaching people when to follow a process versus when to invent a new one is achievable. So are some of the fundamental secrets to how Apple operates in creating suspense and a cult following. Understanding why it is the way it is gives employees a great edge.



    The king is dead. Long live the king...
  • Reply 9 of 52
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I would be hugely impressed if - and certainly do hope - this concept works.



    But I am skeptical.



    Has worked for Pixar over the last 20 years.
  • Reply 10 of 52
    Remember that Pixar has remained quite successful without Jobs' direct presence, but with tenets he's left.



    Edit: as the previous poster points out
  • Reply 11 of 52
    Here's what Apple U hopes to counter:

    http://mobile.theonion.com/articles/...s-doing,26268/



    I hope it works.
  • Reply 12 of 52
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


    Steve learned his ways from the school of hard knocks, and so did a lot of garage tinkerers. The trash coming out of MBA programs is laughable to say the least.



    I agree with the first part of your statement.



    But the second part is nonsense. Apart from everything else, if you seriously believed that, Tim Cook, Peter Oppenheimer, and Ron Johnson (although he's leaving, Apple Retail's success is substantially credited to him) are all "MBA trash".



    Do you seriously think/believe that?!
  • Reply 13 of 52
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post


    Has worked for Pixar over the last 20 years.



    What "has worked" at Pixar for 20 years? Pixar University? Can you be more specific? Leaving aside the fact that SJ was Disney/Pixar's largest shareholder (and a board member) and available for counsel until yesterday, can you tell me what they taught at PU that made it work not only at Pixar standalone, but Pixar under Disney?
  • Reply 14 of 52
    bsimpsenbsimpsen Posts: 398member
    One thing I expect Apple (and Pixar) University to do is teach management how to hire the right people. My first few professional years were spent dying in a stodgy bureaucratic large company. I finally jumped ship to a small company that felt like a family driven to do great things. The CEO hated MBAs and never hired one. He wanted people who were inspired to do great work and gave them the leeway to do so. If you screwed up you took responsibility for it, your mess was swept away quickly and you got back to work. We didn't screw up often.



    When the company was eventually acquired by GE, a great many of us jumped ship once again. We are now scattered far and wide and are highly regarded wherever we go because we retain that desire to "dent the universe". If Apple University helps ensure hiring of people with similar DNA, it won't be as hard to get the last few genes into alignment.
  • Reply 15 of 52
    rot'napplerot'napple Posts: 1,839member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    But teaching people how to innovate? I'm not sure it's that easy.



    While true to an extent, how many patents are there in Apple's IP treasure chest?



    Steve's name was on some 300+ patents, but out of how many and what for what: concept, design, technology, code, electronics, I'm just spitballing here, but surely there are some extraordinary talented, highly educated, and extremely insightful people at the Cupertino campus.



    Aren't there?...

    /

    /

    /
  • Reply 16 of 52
    Jeez, did this guy ever sleep?
  • Reply 17 of 52
    envirogenvirog Posts: 188member
    Wow! That's pretty cool!
  • Reply 18 of 52
    pokepoke Posts: 506member
    The hardest part of innovation isn't having new ideas or grandiose visions but executing on a new idea. Steve Jobs's greatest achievement was surely creating a company that doesn't have the same problems that other companies have when it comes to executing on new ideas (internal political struggles, etc). That's the business legacy he can pass on with Apple University. What the company loses is his cohesive vision and impeccable taste. No doubt things will be different now. I suspect the entire technology industry will move in a different direction than it would with Steve here to steer things. But I think Apple will still be leading the way for a long time to come.
  • Reply 19 of 52
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I agree with the first part of your statement.



    But the second part is nonsense. Apart from everything else, if you seriously believed that, Tim Cook, Peter Oppenheimer, and Ron Johnson (although he's leaving, Apple Retail's success is substantially credited to him) are all "MBA trash".



    Do you seriously think/believe that?!



    He meant everybody else OTHER than those guys.
  • Reply 20 of 52
    matrix07matrix07 Posts: 1,993member
    It seems, as early as 2008, he knew...
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